Luol Deng says the Lakers gave him a 4-year $72,000,000 contract, then refused to let him play after one game in his second season to prioritize younger players “I wanted to stay in Miami, but Pat Riley kept it real. Pat just said, ‘I can’t pay you that much money. You gotta take that money.’ I looked at it like, ‘You know what, I might never ever get this opportunity again.’ But my conversation about going to L.A. was to go there to hoop. I had a mindset of now I’m getting paid. I wanted to make it happen, so I took the chance and I took the money. But what the plan was, was not what I was told” “That kind of changed how I looked at the league, my love for the game and so on. I really mean it. I was getting all this money, but it didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel the same. What I mean by that is I wanted to play. I wanted to be a part of the team. I wanted a chance, but I was told, ‘We’re going in a different direction. I’m not dressing up and whatnot’” “I always tell people there were a lot of conversations where one month into it, it was like, ‘We’re only gonna play the young guys.’ A month into it, it was like, ‘We need you to get in shape, practice and so on.’ I would get in shape and practice, and then it would be a sit down like, ‘Oh, actually, we decided we’re gonna play the young guys.’ It just kept going” “Two years in, the second year, I was like, ‘I never want to play here.’ I remember it was just like, ‘You’re gonna play. You’re not gonna play. You’re gonna play.’ My agent was trying, but you gave me so much money and now you’re not playing me. Why would anyone else take that contract. You got to let me play for people to see, but I was never allowed to play”